By Greg Sandler
The United Nations is leading a worldwide sustainable development initiative to address issues ranging from poverty and climate change to environmental degradation and urban infrastructure. While the initiative has strong support from governments and policymakers, business leaders around the world need to do more to help realize the 17 global sustainability goals that are part of the 2015 United Nations Global Compact.
The UN’s latest report card on progress across all 17 sustainable
development goals (SDGs) paints a rather grim picture of the future. While
some progress has been made since the SDG initiative was launched, António Guterres,
secretary-general of the UN, notes that “much deeper, faster and more ambitious
response is needed to unleash the social and economic transformation needed to
achieve our 2030 goals.”
The 2030 agenda provides a blueprint for action by governments, non-governmental organizations, and the business community. As Henrik O. Madsen, past president of DNV GL Group observed when the 2030 goals were rolled-out: “Now is the time for business statesmanship.”
That means private sector leaders need to take the lead in moving from a “business as usual” perspective to a mindset which recognizes that a failure to achieve the SDG goals will ultimately lead to a planet that can no longer sustain business. “Business must continue to work together with the Global Compact, policymakers, scientists, labor organizations and civil society to scale up actions and achieve real transformative impact,” said Madsen.
The
good news is that a UN-supported coalition of 30 business leaders was launched
in October 2019 to help mobilize private sector resources for sustainable
development. The Global Investors for
Sustainable Development Alliance (GISD) will initially spend the next two years focusing on
solutions related to long-term SDG investment. The group’s work will include
identifying investment opportunities for developing countries, and
enhancing the impact of private funding in development efforts.
“We
face widening inequality, increased devastation from conflicts and disasters
and a rapidly warming Earth,” said
Guterres. “These
leaders have seized our sense of urgency, recognizing that our pace must be at
a run, not a crawl. They are committing to cooperate across borders, across
financial sectors and even with their competitors, because it is both ethical
and good business sense to invest in sustainable development for all people on
a healthy planet.”
Among the actionable solutions the alliance is expected to
advance are innovation in financial instruments, aligning business models with
the 2030 agenda, and addressing industry obstacles to long-term investment in
sustainable development.
The Alliance is comprised of 30 recognized leaders from major financial institutions, manufacturing corporations, and technology service providers – spanning all regions of the world. A full list of participants is available here.
“The Alliance has come together to help drive financing for the 2030 Agenda as we enter a crucial decade of action,” said Amina Mohammed, deputy secretary general of the United Nations. “In particular, to help forge concrete solutions for securing the long-term finance and investment necessary to achieve the SDGs.”
Greg Sandler is executive director of The ThinkGlobal Institute
Last Updated: January 5, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment
Uphill Battle To Provide Good Healthcare Worldwide
Access to basic healthcare is a given for many people around the world. But 400 million people in less developed countries lack access to basic healthcare and social safety nets.
What’s more, about 39 million people are battling HIV, and 15 million of them are not receiving any treatment. Achieving Goal 3 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals will require much more progress over the next decade.
“The world is off-track to achieve the health-related SDGs,” notes a UN update on SDG 3. “Progress has been uneven, both between and within countries … And while some countries have made impressive gains, national averages hide that many are being left behind.”
The UN report advocates for increased multisectoral, rights-based and gender-sensitive approaches for achieving the goal of providing better healthcare worldwide. “Good health is essential to sustainable development and the 2030 Agenda reflects the complexity and interconnectedness of the two,” the report notes.
Solutions in the coming decade need to address economic and social inequalities, rapidly increasing urbanization, climate change, and the ongoing battle against infectious diseases.
“Universal health coverage will be integral to achieving SDG 3, ending poverty and reducing inequalities,” says the UN report.
Businesses and industry groups can make a difference. For example, companies in the biopharmaceutical industry are mobilizing resources to help improve healthcare worldwide. The industry has helped create Global Health Progress, an online knowledge hub highlighting 200-plus collaborations between the biopharmaceutical industry and 850 partners in support of the SDGs.
The private sector and industry groups in every sector will have to step-up in the coming decade to help the United Nations achieve its goal of improved healthcare worldwide by 2030.
A framework for action has already been created by the UN. In September 2019, 12 multilateral agencies launched a joint plan to to accelerate progress towards the health-related SDGs over the next decade. The “Stronger Collaboration, Better Health: Global Action Plan for Healthy Lives and Well-being for All” outlines how health, development and humanitarian agencies will collaborate to be more efficient and provide more streamlined support to countries to deliver universal health coverage and achieve the health-related SDG targets.
“The plan is called, ‘Stronger Collaboration, Better Health’ for a reason,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of World Health Organization. “Although collaboration is the path, impact is the destination. The release of this plan is the beginning, not the end, of that path.”
Posted: January 3, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment
Achieving Zero Hunger Goal Requires More Resources
Efforts to achieve Zero Hunger in the world – the UN’s sustainable development goal 2 – requires a transformation of the global food and agriculture system in order to feed the 815 million hungry people today, and the additional 2 billion people expected by 2050.
Despite efforts to reduce hunger by 2030, the United Nations estimates that approximately one of every nine people in the world is under-nourished. “Hunger is on the rise again globally and undernutrition continues to affect millions of children,” notes a UN progress report on sustainable development. “Public investment in agriculture globally is declining, small-scale food producers and family farmers require much greater support and increased investment in infrastructure and technology for sustainable agriculture is urgently needed.”
According to the UN Report, more needs to be done to improve the capacity of small scale farmers. In Africa, Asia and Latin America, up to 85 percent of food producers are small farmers. “Strengthening the resilience and adaptive capacity of small-scale and family farmers, whose productivity is systematically lower than all other food producers, is critical to reversing the trend of the rise in hunger,” the report notes.
“Our actions to tackle these troubling trends will have to be bolder, not only in scale but also in terms of multisectoral collaboration,” the heads of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) urged in their joint foreword to a World Health Organization (WHO) report, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World.
According to the WHO report, the situation is most alarming in Africa, which has the highest rates of hunger in the world. In Eastern Africa in particular, the report notes, close to a third of the population (30.8 percent) is undernourished. “In addition to climate and conflict, economic slowdowns and downturns are driving the rise,” the report concludes.
SDG Goal 2 seeks to end hunger by 2030, and to ensure that everyone everywhere has enough good-quality food to lead a healthy life.
More information about the UN’s sustainable development goals and progress on SDG Goal 2 are available online.
Last Updated: January 2, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment
World Lags Behind United Nations Goal To End Poverty by 2030
The decline of extreme global poverty continues, but has slowed, according to a United Nations status report on efforts to eliminate poverty, one of 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs). At its current rate, the report says, the world is not on track to achieve the target of less than 3 percent of the world living in extreme poverty by 2030.
“People who continue to live in extreme poverty face deep, entrenched deprivation often exacerbated by violent conflicts and vulnerability to disasters,” the report notes. “Strong social protection systems and government spending on key services often help those left behind get back on their feet and escape poverty, but these services need to be brought to scale.”
While the total number of people living in extreme poverty DEFNED AS, declined from 16 percent in 2010 to 10 percent in 2015, the UN projects that 6 percent of the world’s population will be living in extreme poverty by 2030. “The situation remains particularly alarming in sub-Saharan Africa, where the share of working poor stood at 38 percent in 2018,” according to the report.
The 2030 UN agenda for sustainable development notes that eradicating poverty “is the greatest global challenge.”
The goal to end poverty includes eliminating extreme poverty for all people everywhere, reducing the number of people living in poverty, and implementing national measures as recommended in the Education 2030 Framework for Action.
“To end poverty, boost shared prosperity, and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, we must use development financing and technical expertise to effect radical change,” said Jim Yong Kim, past president of the World Bank Group.
According to the UN Global Compact, some actions that businesses can take to ensure they do not exacerbate poverty include respecting worker and migrant rights, implementing a zero tolerance policy for forced labor and child labor, and paying workers a living wage.
More information and tools for action on SDG Goal 1 can be found on the UN Global Compact website.
Last Updated: January 2, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment
Reaching UN’s Sustainable Development Goals Requires Global Business Leadership
By Greg Sandler
The United Nations is leading a worldwide sustainable development initiative to address issues ranging from poverty and climate change to environmental degradation and urban infrastructure. While the initiative has strong support from governments and policymakers, business leaders around the world need to do more to help realize the 17 global sustainability goals that are part of the 2015 United Nations Global Compact.
The UN’s latest report card on progress across all 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) paints a rather grim picture of the future. While some progress has been made since the SDG initiative was launched, António Guterres, secretary-general of the UN, notes that “much deeper, faster and more ambitious response is needed to unleash the social and economic transformation needed to achieve our 2030 goals.”
The 2030 agenda provides a blueprint for action by governments, non-governmental organizations, and the business community. As Henrik O. Madsen, past president of DNV GL Group observed when the 2030 goals were rolled-out: “Now is the time for business statesmanship.”
That means private sector leaders need to take the lead in moving from a “business as usual” perspective to a mindset which recognizes that a failure to achieve the SDG goals will ultimately lead to a planet that can no longer sustain business. “Business must continue to work together with the Global Compact, policymakers, scientists, labor organizations and civil society to scale up actions and achieve real transformative impact,” said Madsen.
The good news is that a UN-supported coalition of 30 business leaders was launched in October 2019 to help mobilize private sector resources for sustainable development. The Global Investors for Sustainable Development Alliance (GISD) will initially spend the next two years focusing on solutions related to long-term SDG investment. The group’s work will include identifying investment opportunities for developing countries, and enhancing the impact of private funding in development efforts.
“We face widening inequality, increased devastation from conflicts and disasters and a rapidly warming Earth,” said Guterres. “These leaders have seized our sense of urgency, recognizing that our pace must be at a run, not a crawl. They are committing to cooperate across borders, across financial sectors and even with their competitors, because it is both ethical and good business sense to invest in sustainable development for all people on a healthy planet.”
Among the actionable solutions the alliance is expected to advance are innovation in financial instruments, aligning business models with the 2030 agenda, and addressing industry obstacles to long-term investment in sustainable development.
The Alliance is comprised of 30 recognized leaders from major financial institutions, manufacturing corporations, and technology service providers – spanning all regions of the world. A full list of participants is available here.
“The Alliance has come together to help drive financing for the 2030 Agenda as we enter a crucial decade of action,” said Amina Mohammed, deputy secretary general of the United Nations. “In particular, to help forge concrete solutions for securing the long-term finance and investment necessary to achieve the SDGs.”
Greg Sandler is executive director of The ThinkGlobal Institute
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